Full name: Rob Topham
Role: Head Brewer
DOB: 1983
Birthplace: Huddersfield
Twitter Handle: @CTB_Rob
Website: www.camdentownbrewery.com
Fun Fact: “I used to play the French Horn. I played at the Festival Hall twice…”
J: So, let’s start at the beginning. You’re quite the mysterious one, not that much about you to be found online. I know that you’re a Yorkshireman, a self-proclaimed Twitterphobe, and your favourite Camden Town beer is the Pale Ale, but could you tell us a little more about yourself? Where did it all begin, were you always set for a beer career? Did/do you do much homebrew? Do you come from a family that loved beer? What were your formative years like?
R: It seems I am even more mysterious even than that, my favourite beer is Pils (on the Beer Team section of the website) [Ed: oops] but to be honest it’s hard to have favourites when we put so much work into all of our beers.
As for my history, I did some experimenting with homebrew during my uni days and some extract kit stuff way back when but my brewing interest seriously kicked off when I found that there was a Brewing and Distilling degree course at Heriot-Watt University (which was pointed out to me by my mother…). I’d always been interested in and studied science and the idea of taking the biological and chemical learnings and applying them to something real and tangible at university appealed to me massively. After 4 years of studying and enjoying life as a student in Edinburgh I headed down to London to start my career as a junior brewer at Fuller’s.
That was back in the early 2000’s and the UK beer scene was a very different place. There were only a handful of breweries in London and it was still dwindling. Then we had the resurgence of a huge amount of breweries starting up and a lot of people looking to try new and different beers helping to push that and we now have more than 100 breweries in London and pushing 2000 in the UK.
It’s been great to see that happen (and to sample a lot of different beers) and even better to have been lucky enough to be involved in it.
You presided over the acquisition by AB InBev, right? What was that like, and how have things changed since then?
‘Presided over’ is a generous term but yes, I have been responsible for Camden’s beers on both sides of the growth, with and without ABI. I still clearly remember the day Jasper announced it and the insanity of the immediate aftermath. It was a strange time but, in terms of the attention to detail and their approach to quality, whether you like their beers or not, there is little question over their dedication to making them to the highest possible standards.
As for what has changed, from a production side, I can honestly say it has only helped us push our boundaries even further. We still get our ingredients from the same places we used to and make the beer how we believe is the best way to do it. What they have helped us to do is invest in some of the best brewing equipment for Enfield and build up our in-house laboratory (both equipment and people) to allow us to see how we’re doing in much more detail than ever before.
In terms of the brewing process, is there a particular approach that you have taken at Camden Town? And, on a related note, how have you guys come so far, so quickly?
One of the big things that drew me to Camden was the quality and consistency of the beer and seeing how Jasper had invested in some fantastic brewing equipment and gone a different direction to a lot of breweries (buying a German brewhouse to make lagers when the majority were making ales on a traditional British style brewhouse) showed this was a brewery that was going to seriously challenge itself.
Making lager is one of the toughest beer styles to produce consistently and, whilst there is no real secret to any of the processes we use, we are always challenging ourselves to be critical of the beer we make and think about how it can be improved.
Our process for making lagers takes 4 weeks, not because we picked a number out of the hat that sounded good, but because we’ve tasted the beer all the way through the process and 4 weeks is the optimum time for the flavours to develop as we want them.
When we came to Enfield, Steineker Krones, who built the brewhouse, tasted our beers and said ‘yes, we can match this quality with our brewhouse’. We said to them ‘we don’t want it to taste the same, we want it to taste better!’. Now we have one of the most modern brewhouses in the UK and we’ve been able to expand the team (which is still expanding…) and invest in equipment to keep pushing the quality and consistency of our beers.
What’s a ‘day in your life’ like? Could you give us an insight into the beer business?
A day in the life of Camden is always different… Since I’ve been at Camden (and before) we’ve grown every single day, more beer, more people, more equipment, more knowledge. I split my time between the bigger Enfield brewery and our original brewery in Camden. At Enfield I’ll generally spend the time catching up on how the beers are fermenting, how production is running, if there are any issues to talk about and how we’re going to approach them.
We have a really good team of people to look after the beer so I don’t get to brew as much as I used to but I never miss an opportunity to get my hands dirty and see what we can be doing better. We have a taste panel every day to check the beers through the process and in package, as well as tasting the water that is used to brew them so we know it’s tasting as we want it and to discuss how we could make it better.
In Camden, the atmosphere is a bit different, more focused on testing out new ideas and collab brews these days. The team there is great too and they are full of ideas so there’s always something being tested.
What’s your greatest/most memorable professional moment been, so far?
Pretty easy this one, picking up the gold medal for Wit at this year’s World Beer Cup in Nashville. That’s more of a ‘greatest moment’ than memorable, though there is some video footage to remind me what happened that night!
Where do you get your ideas?
It can be from almost anywhere, the team at Camden – from brewing to office crew all have some amazing ideas, from trying different beers or other drinks, from publications and experiments, from other breweries and brewing friends and even just epiphanies from seeing something while out and about.
When you’re dealing with a biological process that can be temperamental, you need to be able to creative – not just in the recipe development but also in looking after the beer at all stages in the brewery.
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve had, how did you overcome it, and what did you learn from it?
The biggest challenge probably has to be opening the Enfield brewery. We were still growing at a crazy rate and had to juggle brewing at our smaller brewery in Camden and the brewery we were working with in Belgium, whilst trying to install and recruit for Enfield. It took a little bit longer than we had estimated to get the plant running so we ran with quite a lean team for a while.
Fortunately, the team we had was small but highly motivated so we worked to break down the jobs into sections and tackle them one by one, getting the individual areas running and working very closely with the team from Krones, KHS and CFT to make sure we had everything right. It was tough but it was also a fantastic experience and opportunity to be part of.
What we’ve learnt, the list is almost endless. I think the main thing was that we kind of forgot we were opening up a completely new brewery and pulling back a huge amount of volume from our contract brewing partner, not just expanding our small brewery.
Doing something like this in such a short space of time (it was only around 6 months from the start of the install to the first brew) needs a lot of people and for them to be solely focused on the job of opening a new brewery and leave someone else to focus on the day-to-day brewing in the meantime.
Who’s the person who’s most inspired you in your work? Is there anyone that you draw inspiration or strength from, or do you have any specific influences?
Outside of direct personal influences, Ken Grossman has always been an inspiration to me. What he did with Sierra Nevada and being a pioneer of the American beer revolution and his commitment to both the beer they make and the environment they make it in is amazing.
On a more personal level, I can’t go without mentioning two people I feel I owe my career and development during my time at Fuller’s to, Georgina Young, for giving me my break as a young brewer and Derek Prentice, for teaching me so much about brewing, both technically and historically.
What do you enjoy most and least about what you do?
My favourite thing about being a brewer is simply to be in a pub or bar and seeing someone ordering one of the beers we’ve made and enjoying it, maybe a nod to the barman to say simply ‘that’s a good beer’ to put the icing on the cake!
Least favourite – Anything to do with Powerpoint! And going into a bar that doesn’t look after the beer with the same effort we put into making it. Fortunately, at Camden we have a team of Draught Technicians who go out and make sure our beers are being cared for in the right way.
What advice would you give to aspiring beer pros who’d want the kind of results that you’ve had?
Always be open to new ideas, remember there will always be something new to learn about brewing and focus on the process as much as the recipe. Brewers are a stubborn bunch so sometimes this can be hard but keep an open mind and learn from everyone you can.
If you weren’t doing what you do now, what would you be doing instead?
My other choices on my uni applications were for Forensic Science, so I’d probably be doing something involving that.
If you could get anyone to try your beer (fictional or real, living or dead) who would you pick and which of the beers would you like them to try? Assume that they go on to be your brand ambassador…
I reckon maybe John Thomson as his Jazz Club presenter persona Louis Balfour from the Fast Show, imagine the adverts we’d get from that… The beer, Unfiltered Hells, the classic but with an edge.
And we always ask three customary ridiculous questions…
You have acquired a pet dragon and are morally obliged to look after it. It is 25 ft tall at the hips, spits fire, eats half a ton of raw meat a day, and likes long walks. What would you call it and what would you do to keep it entertained and housed?
It’s going to be called Alan, and I’d take it to live in a forest so it can naturally graze for food and keep it fit by chasing it around on a bike!
If you had to be transformed into any kind of household appliance, but retained your memories, ability to speak and personality, what would you pick?
Probably a fridge, at least that way I’d still get to put beer inside me!
If you were given an infinite budget but had to spend it all on entirely frivolous stuff, what are the first 3 things you’d buy, and why?
I suppose that depends on the definition of ‘frivolous’, but I’d probably buy myself a campervan, the shiniest new mountain bike and a van load of beer before heading off to the Alps or somewhere to spend my time riding around there.